Religion Briefs

WOBURN, MASS. • A Massachusetts man has been convicted of murdering his wife and 11-year-old stepson out of anger over the time she spent with members of her church.

Jeremias Bins was then sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.

Prosecutors said Bins walked into the Framingham police station in May 2006 and said he had just bludgeoned his wife and stepson with a hammer. He handed the couple's 5-month-old son to officers and said, "I'm sorry."

Bins' wife was an active member of the Mormon church. He occasionally attended church services with her but did not become a member. About two hours before the killings, Bins had called church members and said he didn't want them at his home any more.

Congregations switch denominations

FRESNO • Two large Presbyterian congregations in California have voted to leave the Presbyterian Church over the possibility of gay leadership and the authority of Scripture.

Members of First Presbyterian in Fresno and Trinity Presbyterian in Clovis voted Sunday to join a more conservative denomination - the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

More than 100 churches have left the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. since its leaders voted in July to drop a requirement that church officials live in "fidelity with the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness."

Army discharges soldier for beating trainee

SAVANNAH, GA. • The Army has kicked out a soldier for beating a Jewish trainee who complained about religious harassment at Fort Benning, Ga.

The Army says Pvt. Michael Handman was beaten Sept. 24 by a fellow trainee in a laundry room near his barracks. Handman was treated at an Army hospital for a concussion and bruising to his face. He has since been transferred to another basic training unit at Fort Benning.

Four days before the attack, Handman was interviewed by commanders of his unit about complaints he'd made in letters to his parents that he'd been harassed by drill sergeants because he's Jewish.

The Army later acknowledged one drill sergeant had ordered Handman to remove his yarmulke, which he wore with his uniform. Another drill sergeant had called him "Juden" - the German word for Jews.

Vatican issues new guidelines for priests

VATICAN CITY • The Vatican has issued psychological screening guidelines for seminarians as the church seeks to be more selective about priesthood candidates following the pedophile scandals.

The new guidelines stress that if a future priest shows "deep-seated homosexual tendencies," his seminary training "would have to be interrupted."

They add that a priest must have a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity" and the capacity to "integrate his sexuality in accordance" with the obligation of celibacy.

The Church is struggling to provide priests for parishes in many parts of the world, but Pope Benedict has said it's more important to have good priests than more priests.

Temple relocated to Baptist school

GREENVILLE, S.C. • A former Buddhist temple has been moved from Japan to Greenville, S. C., where it now stands on the campus of Furman University.

Next semester, Furman students will sit on its wooden floors and meditate for 90 minutes in a class called "Realizing Bodymind." The so-called Place of Peace was shipped in 2,400 pieces and reassembled by artisans from Japan.

The structure, donated by a Japanese family, symbolizes the school's evolution. Founded in 1826 by the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Furman is recasting itself as a center for Far Eastern studies.

Furman was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention until 1991. The university's Web site now expresses "respect for a diversity of religious perspectives."

Ordination triggers excommunication

CHICAGO • A woman claiming to be a Catholic bishop "ordained" a so-called womanpriest and three "women deacons" at St. Paul's United Church of Christ. In response, a spokeswoman from the Archdiocese of Chicago said that her act automatically excommunicates the participants.

Dana Reynolds, from Carmel-bythe-Sea, California, claims that she was ordained a womanpriest in 2006. At an April 9 ceremony, she became the first self-described U.S. bishop for the dissenting Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement.

A statement from the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the

Faith reiterated traditional Church teaching that the Church has no power or authority to ordain women as priests. The statement also noted such attempted ordinations incur an automatic excommunication for both the ordainer and the would-be ordained.

Reynolds "ordained" Barbara Zeman as a womanpriest. Speaking to the Chicago Tribune, Zeman claimed she was disobeying an "unjust law."

Reynolds also "ordained" three women deacons.

The Archdiocese of Chicago condemned the ceremony and repeated the Vatican's excommunication decree.

"Cardinal George could declare that those persons have been excommunicated by the law itself, but they are excommunicated whether the cardinal declares them so or not," archdiocesan spokeswoman Susan Burritt told the Chicago Tribune.

Reynolds has held several ordination ceremonies at liberal Protestant or Unitarian churches. Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois is being investigated for joining Reynolds in an attempted August ordination of a woman at a Unitarian church in Lexington, Ky.

The priest has been given a "canonical warning" and a future violation could result in dismissal from his order.